


it festers

by riftclosing



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Dissociation, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-14
Updated: 2019-06-14
Packaged: 2020-05-07 19:38:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19216138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/riftclosing/pseuds/riftclosing
Summary: Trevelyan has a difficult time coping with the thing on her hand(read the tags)





	it festers

**Author's Note:**

> this one is a tad gross! and i had a hard time rating it because i don't know what level of descibed violence constitutes mature vs explicit :(. i shy away from detailing my or other people's experiences with mental illness, but an inquisitor not dealing too well wit the mark is an idea i have been sitting on for a while.
> 
> warnings: self-harm, kind of body horror, dissociation
> 
> the inquisitor in question, although never named, is C.R., who is here https://66.media.tumblr.com/86ad330cf1482bb5a8610df6c06c595f/tumblr_ps8qxuBUql1tbpvb4o2_1280.png

It was there, and it festered like a wound left uncleaned. She could  _ always feel it _ . As she ate, as she slept, as she worked, as she  _ breathed _ . It felt like it breathed with her, sometimes. It felt like it breathed on its own, too.

 

She wore layers of gloves so thick she could not move her fingers. It still festered. It still glowed with its sickly green hue and she wanted to scream. She could  _ hear _  it under the cloth. It didn’t like being stifled. It had  _ work  _ to do. She screamed at it in camp once. She wanted it to be quiet. She threatened to rip it apart. The dwarf had thought she was having a nightmare and told her stories until dawn broke. She pretended to play with sticks and leaves while she listened. She was stuffing them into the wound. It just chucked them back out. She could hear it laughing at her the whole time.

 

The senses in her hand were duller because all she could feel was the  _ festering _ . Like something wanted to crawl out of her body. The green  _ thing  _ was the only way through. She wanted to claw it out with her nails and rip the thing out herself, but the spy had found her quickly, and stopped it before it began.

 

She took a knife to it once. She’d been alone in the chantry’s basement, in the holding cell they’d kept her when she was their prisoner instead of their savior. Cutting into her palm to make sure she could still feel. Flesh and bone and flesh and bone and air and air and air and  _ air _ . She couldn’t feel the knife as it scraped against her bones. If she let go, the evil thing might swallow the knife whole.

 

_ Why can’t I feel anything? _

 

She dug deeper, trying to scoop up sinew to prove that she was still herself there. That the explosion hadn’t taken that from her. There had to be  _ something  _ under that thing.  _ She _ had to be under there.

 

She tried to stick the knife through the back of her hand. The knife didn’t go all the way through.

 

A chantry sister screamed and took the hurting thing out of her hand, called for bandages and tried to stop the blood. She forgot she was bleeding.

 

There were whispers of possession, a demon trying to take their precious herald. The fire of gossip was snuffed quickly. The bard wouldn't allow it.

 

The elf watched over her more carefully then. As if he wasn’t before.

 

The knife had made it worse. It spread to the fresh cuts in her skin and stayed there. She wasn’t sure if the cuts ever healed because all she could see was the bright green and all she could feel was the festering. The clawing. She wished that whatever wanted her body would just  _ take it _ .

 

Her hand was not her own. It was a festering hole, it was air, it was **nothing**.

**Author's Note:**

> sorry gamers :pensive:


End file.
